Best Day Hikes in the Olympic Peninsula

As Bob Dylan said in a recent interview in Rolling Stone Magazine, his advice to kids is to put down their cell and iphones and take more nature walks. Well, since I moved to the Olympic Peninsula as an adult I have found this to be a golden nugget of advice for myself as I have found that I live in an oasis of hiking trails.

For the beginning hiker, one needs to go no further than the Olympic National Park visitor center on Peabody street in Port Angeles which is filled with information about the wildlife and plant life you might encounter.

If you're a first timer, the visitor center already has the Peabody Creek trail which is just a few miles where you can enjoy lush foliage, fir trees, and creeks fed by mountain fed streams that eventually flow into the the Strait of Juan de Fuca between Washington State and Canada.

Being lucky enough to live close by, whenever I fee agitated or that my eyes are glazing over from staring at a computer screen, I often walk this trail and when I hear the sounds of the birds chirping and the streams softly rolling over smooth stones, my worries seem to get taken away by the flow of the river.

You can either go in a direction that takes you to the City of Port Angeles or go the opposite direction for a 5 mile hike that eventually leads you to the Heart of the Hills Camp Ground, which you can reach by car or foot. If you're a really serious hiker, you can hike 17 miles all the way to Hurricane Ridge - or of course drive the winding road cautiously, where you can catch a view of Mount Olympus, grab a snack, drink or souvenir from the visitor center, and hike the Beaver trail next to the observation center outside.

You may want to pack a camera and zoom lense with your hiking gear as it is not uncommon to catch a glimpse of a marmot sunbathing on a rock or even a black bear grazing along the meadows looking for wild berries at Hurricane Ridge.

One of my personal favorites is hiking to the lighthouse in Sequim. If you take Kitchen Dick Road on the west side of Sequim, WA off of Highway 101 to the dungeness Recreation area you can enjoy a 5.5 mile hike to a historic Coast Guard leased lighthouse where a weekly volunteer will serve as your guide. It is a wonderful place to see 250 species of birds, 41 different species of land mammals, and eight species of marine mammals as well as experience spectacular sunsets that words can't describe.

When I feel like quieting the noise in my mind and escaping the world, nothing works better for me than hiking by the water. And in Sequim you can hike the Clallam Bay Spit that takes you along the Strait of Juan De Fuca between Washington State and Canada. Besides the rough ocean fed waters, you also get views of mountain ranges. It's only a 2.5 mile hike but who cares about the distance when you consider the scenery as well as the wildlife.

Source -
http://www.olympicpeninsula.org/